"As a Council, we have identified the importance of the health and wellbeing of our staff and formed a group of representatives from across different areas of the Council to discuss what we are doing in related activities and support.  This enabled us to start to identify gaps and needs and has given good insights that have supported further developments.  Coming together as a group has enabled us to develop Health and Wellbeing Champions across the Council and Mental Health First Aiders.  These are volunteer roles from existing staff who are now well placed to provide support for access to what’s on offer, act as point of contact and first line support and signposting.  Alongside this, a few support groups are starting to emerge supporting specific staff needs, such as menopause, race, religion and culture networks and men’s wellbeing.  So, we feel like we are really starting to get a good understanding of individuals needs in the context of their health and wellbeing.  We have had very positive support with this at all levels, including senior managers – it is easy to see that ensuring the health and wellbeing of staff contributes to our principles, values, and ethos.  It also can have a direct impact on staff absence and staff leavers so important to us.

When the Healthy Workplace award was launched, we saw it as a great opportunity to enable us to benchmark where we are and to understand what gaps there might be related to our support offer.  Because the standards are defined as Bronze, Silver, and Gold, of course we will aspire to be Gold, but our reality is that it is a journey and having a template that enables us to know where we are in supporting health and wellbeing, is a key tool that enables us to benchmark our position and understand what we need to do to further progress.

We have designated a role that is taking a lead on the activities to support us to position ourselves.  They are currently engaging in the benchmarking and will be conducting focus groups to get a broader understanding where gaps are identified of what the needs are that we need to further develop.

Investing in staff wellbeing is critical to a positive and safe working environment that demonstrates care and support and understanding and is important to us, especially in the context of more hybrid ways of working and the greater challenges being felt from the current circumstances we are all existing in,  alongside our residents.

As we explore and develop our position on health and wellbeing, it has highlighted greater opportunities for us to engage with our members who are also similarly affected, and our work to support them in a wider health and wellbeing strategy that is being developed across all of CBC.  It is also our opportunity to work with colleagues across the BLMK who are also faced with similar issues and challenges."

"At Crave Interactive Ltd, the Health and Wellbeing of our employees is one of the top priorities when it comes to our people agenda. 

When we were introduced to the Healthy Workplace Standards, we were excited to sign up to the programme and take our journey with health and wellbeing to the next level. We are already doing lots of positive things and it will be great to formalise this as a recognised standard. 

Lisa has really supported us to coordinate our efforts and focus on the next steps for us as a business. She is frequently in contact with me, sharing best practices, toolkits, webinars and other learning tools; which have been invaluable to myself and also the wider workforce". 

"Clearview Intelligence have found the introduction of the Healthy Workplace Standards in Milton Keynes a breath of fresh air. It is a place where our organisation can showcase the work we are doing to improve our staff’s health and wellbeing, as well as provide us with the support and opportunity to continuously improve our internal health, wellbeing and safety practices. The process itself to upload evidence in order to gain awards is simple and effortless, and the feedback provided by the panel for each standard is extremely helpful and supportive. Thank you to everyone involved at Milton Keynes council in the development and delivery of the Healthy Workplace Standards!"

"I work with businesses of all sizes and a common theme I see often is that they want to do something to support the wellbeing and mental health of their staff but just don’t know where to start.  This can all to often result in them taking a ‘tick box’ approach by simply running ad hoc events or having a ‘free fruit Friday’.  All of this can be great but has limited impact if it is not part of a properly developed strategy that is embedded and aligned to their business goals and values.  This tick box approach can often lead to disengagement of staff which is really sad given their good intentions.  Often businesses believe that a strategy needs to be complex and resource intensive – it doesn’t!  That’s why I love the framework provided by the Healthy Workplace Award which is a refreshing approach.  I believe this will be a powerful tool for all businesses to use to help shape their plans in a structured, rather than piece-meal way and the impact will be much greater as a result."

"I am absolutely blown away by how easy the whole process is (I thought I had misunderstood something from reading on the website but you confirmed it is exactly like that). I am impressed that I am fully in control of the time it takes to achieve any of the standards and that it is free. It feels like one of those things where you are thinking "So what's the catch?" or "It's too good to be true".